Today we're making available another preview of the forthcoming Player for Linux.

This new version supports connecting to CMS instances over http or https, and to CMS instances that run inside sub directories, or on custom ports. It also supports legacy XMDS file downloads so no special configuration of the CMS File Download Mode is required.

In addition, it manages its local files so it should download content once only from the CMS and then maintain that local library.

If you have a 1.8.12 CMS, then you can connect the Player directly to that as it already has support for Linux Players. You may need to create a Display Settings Profile for the Linux Player ahead of connecting your first Linux Player. Not all of the settings in the Display Settings Profile will work at present, but we've included them now in readiness for them being implemented in to the Player.

If you have an earlier 1.8 CMS, then please see the post for the 0.3.3-alpha release for instructions on configuring your CMS to support the new Player.

Once your CMS is ready, We're now using an improved distribution system based on snapcraft "snap" packages to package the Player for deployment. It offers a clean, dependency free installation, as well as the potential for automatic upgrades in the future.

Many Linux distributions support snap packages out of the box now, but we've tested with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64 bit and 18.04 LTS 64 bit.

If you previously installed 0.3.3a or 0.4a and haven't removed it, then it will automatically upgrade in due course to 0.5a. You can force that to happen now by running:

snap refresh xibo-player-test --channel=beta

You can check to see what version of the Player you have installed by running

The server key is the one you would normally use to register Players with the CMS. The hardware key is normally generated for you (and in the future it will be, but for now you can use a random string to identify this display).

The Player will register with the CMS. Press Ctrl+C in the terminal window to quit.

Now in the CMS, authorise the display as normal. You can set a default layout for the Player to show, and then run the Player again.

On each run, the Player will download the layout from the CMS, and render it for you.

Please let us know of any rendering issues you encounter in the comments below. Depending on the respose we get to this we may not be able to answer each comment individually, but will be reading the responses and investigating where feasible.

When you're finished testing, you can safely delete the files the Player created in your temporary directory, and if you want to remove the Player from your system, simply run

We are proud to announce the release of our first beta for the 2.0 version of Xibo. The codename for this version is “Swift”.

Originally discovered on November 27, 1869 by Tempel (the codename for our 1.8 release), the 11P/Tempel–Swift–LINEAR comet was rediscovered by Swift on October 11, 1880, lost and rediscovered again by LINEAR on December 7, 2001.

2.0.0-beta.2 is a should be used for testing only and not be used in production. You can upgrade to this release from 1.8 series.

We have had 4 focus points for 2.0:

Improved Layout Design experience

Playlists

Draft/Published Layouts

Database Schema migrations for Upgrades

If you're interested in reading more about these things and what they mean for Xibo, please take a look at our 2.0.0-alpha blog post.

This beta is a CMS only release - Player beta releases will follow in due course and you can use a 1.8 Player against a 2.0.0-beta.2 CMS.

We will leave you with a teaser screenshot of the new Playlist Feature!

Download

We're making this beta available for people to try using our recommended installation method, Docker. We will be providing release files for the stable 2.0.0 release for those of you running without Docker in due course.

We have looked at how we can make Upgrading Players that little bit easier in the CMS without the need for User's having to select many Displays or Display Groups to do a simple Player Version upgrade, and so we have done exactly that...

Once the latest Player Version has been downloaded from the Download Centre upload to the CMS from the Player Versions page of the CMS menu...

...navigate to Display Settings to edit the appropriate Display Profile, from the Advanced tab select the Version using the drop down.

All Displays assigned to that Display Profile will download the new version and install it during the next configured download and upgrade window!

We have also included a Player Version Override option for Displays you wish to run an alternate version. Simply assign a different Player Version for selected Displays before upgrading the Player Version on the Display Profile.

Please note: Windows Player upgrades are not supported in this way.To upgrade Windows Players you will need to install the new version as detailed in the Installation Manual.

Our recent release gives you two great settings that can be enabled for User Passwords.

Forgotten your Password? - Reset at login.

Save time and enable a link to be made available to Users who have forgotten their Password so they do not have to wait for this to be reset by a Super Admin in order to gain access to the CMS. With this enabled, a User can simply click on the link to send a Password Reset Notification to their saved email address.

This feature can be activated by Super Admin Users by navigating to Settings under the Administration section of the Menu and selecting the Users tab.

Force Password Change at next login.

Ensure that new Users update the Password first given to them the next time they log in to the CMS. This option is set at the individual User level by accessing Users under the Administration section of the Menu. Edit the User record and select Force Password Change from the Options tab.

We are pleased to announce our 12th bug fix release for the 1.8 series of Xibo. The codename for this series is “Tempel”.

This release improves the stability and scalability of the Xibo platform through 84 bug fixes and improvements.

Due to user feedback this release was updated with a fix on 31st Jan 2019 08:00 AM GMT. The fix solves an issue some users experienced with the upgrader setting stuck on a step. If you experienced this issue and skipped the step, or if you have yet to upgrade, no action is needed.

At Xibo we have a big plan, which is to make digital signage available to everyone! We want every business and organisation to be able to leverage the benefits that digital signage can bring. That is why we have introduced subscription pricing for our commercial players and hosting products.

What does this mean?

To put it simply, you can now purchase our Android, webOS and Tizen commercial players on an annual or monthly basis, and remove the upfront expenditure. And the same applies for our Xibo in the Cloud product.

If you prefer you can still purchase our licenses on a perpetual basis, choose whichever model is best for your business.

Stay current with free upgrades

If you are not already convinced, bug fixes, minor and major software version upgrades are available also for free. As you are on a subscription, you can keep up to date with the latest Xibo releases at no extra cost.

Some pricing examples

Here are some examples of what you would pay per display (excluding applicable taxes).

One Android display license = $18 per year or $1.50 per month

One webOS or Tizen display license = $72 per year or $6 per month

One Xibo in the Cloud display slot = $20.40 per year or $1.70 per month

So if you had 10 Android displays with Xibo in the cloud, that would cost just $32 per month. Bargain right?

Note: Examples use pricing on 25/01/2019, please check the shop the latest pricing. Taxes may apply.

Minimum volumes do apply for monthly purchases as per below.

For Android you need to purchase 10 or more display licenses

For Xibo in the cloud you will need to purchase 10 or more display slots

For webOS and Tizen you will need to purchase 3 or more display licenses.

We are proud to announce the release of our first beta for the 2.0 version of Xibo. The codename for this version is “Swift”.

Originally discovered on November 27, 1869 by Tempel (the codename for our 1.8 release), the 11P/Tempel–Swift–LINEAR comet was rediscovered by Swift on October 11, 1880, lost and rediscovered again by LINEAR on December 7, 2001.

2.0.0-beta is a should be used for testing only and not be used in production. You can upgrade to this release from 1.8 series.

We have had 4 focus points for 2.0:

Improved Layout Design experience

Playlists

Draft/Published Layouts

Database Schema migrations for Upgrades

If you're interested in reading more about these things and what they mean for Xibo, please take a look at our 2.0.0-alpha blog post.

This beta is a CMS only release - Player beta releases will follow in due course and you can use a 1.8 Player against a 2.0.0-beta CMS.

We will leave you with a teaser screenshot of the new Layout Designer!

Download

We're making this beta available for people to try using our recommended installation method, Docker. We will be providing release files for the stable 2.0.0 release for those of you running without Docker in due course.

Today we're making available another preview of the forthcoming Player for Linux.

This new version supports downloading and processing the schedule from the CMS and is for the first time long-running, so it will switch between layouts as dictated by the CMS schedule. Overlay and command schedules are not supported.

It has no file management yet, so will download everything from the CMS on each collection, so it isn't suitable for use on anything other than a test CMS at the moment. It should not be used for production use.

Please see the post for the 0.3.3-alpha release for instructions on configuring your CMS to support the new Player.

Note also that you must have the File Download Mode in your CMS set to Apache or NGINX and your webserver correctly configured to support that. If you're using Xibo with Docker, then that has already been done for you.

Once your CMS is prepared, we'll need to get the Player installed. We're now using an improved distribution system based on snapcraft "snap" packages to package the Player for deployment. It offers a clean, dependency free installation, as well as the potential for automatic upgrades in the future.

Many Linux distributions support snap packages out of the box now, but we've tested with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64 bit and 18.04 LTS 64 bit.

If you previously installed 0.3.3a and haven't removed it, then it will automatically upgrade in due course to 0.4a. You can force that to happen now by running:

snap refresh xibo-player-test --channel=beta

You can check to see what version of the Player you have installed by running

The server key is the one you would normally use to register Players with the CMS. The hardware key is normally generated for you (and in the future it will be, but for now you can use a random string to identify this display).

The Player will register with the CMS. Press Ctrl+C in the terminal window to quit.

Now in the CMS, authorise the display as normal. You can set a default layout for the Player to show, and then run the Player again.

On each run, the Player will download the layout from the CMS, and render it for you.

Please let us know of any rendering issues you encounter in the comments below. Depending on the respose we get to this we may not be able to answer each comment individually, but will be reading the responses and investigating where feasible.

When you're finished testing, you can safely delete the files the Player created in your temporary directory, and if you want to remove the Player from your system, simply run

We are proud to announce the release of our first development preview for the 2.0 version of Xibo. The codename for this version is “Swift”.

Originally discovered on November 27, 1869 by Tempel (the codename for our 1.8 release), the 11P/Tempel–Swift–LINEAR comet was rediscovered by Swift on October 11, 1880, lost and rediscovered again by LINEAR on December 7, 2001.

2.0.0-alpha is a development preview only and should not be used in production. You can upgrade to this release from 1.8 series.

We have had 4 focus points for this version:

Improved Layout Design experience

Playlists

Draft/Published Layouts

Database Schema migrations for Upgrades

This alpha is a CMS only release - Player releases will follow in due course and you can use a 1.8 Player against a 2.0.0-alpha CMS.

Layout Designer

We've redesigned our Layout Designer from the ground up, with the new design being based on feedback from thousands of users with years of experience. The 'key brief' to bring about a simplified process for designing a Layout and to make that experience flow without interruption.

There is a new Toolbox, located at the bottom of the screen for adding Widgets and Library Media which includes tabs for searching in the Library. We've also given the toolbar a memory so that when you next open Xibo, you can pick up right where you left off.

We've enhanced how you position and size Regions on a Layout by using a Layout Navigator, located in the top left and made the Region timeline always visible. We've also included smarts to estimate when items will be shown in time with each other.

Playlists

Xibo has always had Playlists, but they've been single-use and hidden away inside Regions, making them inflexible.

We've extracted this concept out into its own Playlists Page accessible from the Library. You can now name and reuse these Playlists across multiple Layouts and Regions. Each Playlist you create has a timeline which can hold all Xibo's Widgets, even Sub-Playlists, which are assigned using the Toolbox. With the use of search criteria, Playlists can also be pre-populated on creation or dynamically kept up to date.

To assign a Playlist to a Layout you simply use the Sub-Playlist Widget. This Widget allows one or more Playlists to be selected and, if more than one is selected, you can decide how the Widgets on that Playlist are combined in the Region.

Draft/Published Layouts

We've all been there - you have a Layout playing across your inventory and notice a typo, wrong logo being used, or that the date isn't quite correct. Currently, you need to go into Xibo to change it, make an adjustment and all Displays immediately download and play the Layout while you are still making changes...

We've solved that problem with Draft/Published on Layouts!

Before you can make any change to a Layout in 2.0 you need to Checkout to change the Layout to a Draft Layout. Changes made to a Draft Layout are never sent automatically to Displays, so you can take your time with edits. When you're done you can either Publish to make those changes permanent, at which point the Layout will be sent, or Discard to go back to the original Published version.

Database Migrations

We have adopted a tool called Phinx to help us manage database schema changes between versions. 1.8 and earlier had a tool developed in-house, which grew complex over time. Phinx gives us a strong framework to author and test migrations so that we can improve our database updates moving forward.

Download

We're making this alpha available for people to try using our recommended installation method, Docker. We will be providing release files for the stable 2.0.0 release for those of you running without Docker in due course.

Future development

Our immediate development work will be to prepare a 2.0.0-beta release which will add more polish to all the features we've put in 2.0 so far. We will also be responding to your feedback and any bug reports.

Beyond 2.0 we've begun working on 2.1, which will focus on improvements to Proof of Play statistics.

We're very excited to be releasing today the second public "Technology Preview" of our forthcoming Player for Linux.

We're aiming to gather some feedback from the Community on how well the Player runs on the various types of hardware that you anticipate running a Linux Player on, as well as seeing what issues might be encountered.

This version builds on the functionality of the first public preview, and is now able to connect to a CMS over HTTP, and download whatever layout has been set as default, and then run that layout.

There's also been a whole raft of changes under the hood.

If you'd like to test the new Player, a small patch needs to be applied to your CMS to allow it to support the new type of Player. To make the patch:

Update your settings-custom.php file, or add to your settings.php file for non-Docker based installs, the following new Middleware

$middleware = [new \Xibo\Custom\XiboForLinuxMiddleware()];

If successful you should see a new Display Profile for Linux added to your CMS whe you visit the Display Settings page.

Once your CMS is prepared, we'll need to get the Player installed. We're now using an improved distribution system based on snapcraft "snap" packages to package the Player for deployment. It offers a clean, dependency free installation, as well as the potential for automatic upgrades in the future.

Many Linux distributions support snap packages out of the box now, but we've tested with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64 bit and 18.04 LTS 64 bit.

To install the Player, simply run:

snap install xibo-player-test --channel=beta

The Player will be installed without affecting any other software you might have installed on your machine.

To run the Player, change in to a directory where you want us to store the layout and media files (a temporary directory or a new empty directory is perfect), and then run

The server key is the one you would normally use to register Players with the CMS. The hardware key is normally generated for you (and in the future it will be, but for now you can use a random string to identify this display).

The Player will register with the CMS. Press Ctrl+C in the terminal window to quit.

Now in the CMS, authorise the display as normal. You can set a default layout for the Player to show, and then run the Player again.

On each run, the Player will download the layout from the CMS, and render it for you.

Please let us know of any rendering issues you encounter in the comments below. Depending on the respose we get to this we may not be able to answer each comment individually, but will be reading the responses and investigating where feasible.

When you're finished testing, you can safely delete the files the Player created in your temporary directory, and if you want to remove the Player from your system, simply run

Instructions for upgrading from an earlier release can be found in the FAQ at the end of the installation guide. It’s also well worth having a look at the Knowledge Base.

If you have a white label build of the application it is available in your account.

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Please note that Xibo Signage will close on Monday 24th December at 12:00 noon for the UK Christmas holidays and will re-open at 8am on Thursday 27th December. We will then be open as usual until Monday 31st December. We are then closed all day on Tuesday 1st January

Please note that Xibo Signage will close on Monday 24th December at 12:00 noon for the UK Christmas holidays and will re-open at 8am on Thursday 27th December. We will then be open as usual until Monday 31st December. We are then closed all day on Tuesday 1st January 2019 and return to normal hours from Wednesday 2nd January 2019.

If you require support during these closures, please contact our service desk and we will be in touch as soon as we are able.

The team at Xibo Signage wish you all seasons greetings and best wishes for 2019.

Default name for new Players changed from "Android" to the Device Serial Number for easy identification in the CMS.

Improved system signed applications so that they do not need to run as the system user.

Please note we have had reports that some devices will show a "Launcher decision" popup on reboot. If you haven't done so already, please make sure you reboot after upgrading your device to make this selection.